Avengers: Endgame (2019)

What kind of Marvel Cinematic Universe fan would I be if I didn't see this, of all entries, in the theater? My dad finally came back, too. The main complaint I've seen about it is that it's hard to talk about without spoiling. Well, I'll give my typical level of skirting the edge. Chances are, if you have enough interest to see Endgame, you either already saw key previous entries or won't mind learning some of what happened in them, most notably the ending of Infinity War.

I had expected most of the movie to consist of the remaining heroes seeking out and fighting Thanos for the Infinity Gauntlet so that they could undo his sudden annihilation of half the life in the universe. Actually, they don't take long to overpower him, but the gauntlet has been emptied of the Infinity Stones, and Thanos probably isn't lying when he says he destroyed them. (What, no periodic repetitions in his war on overpopulation?) For the next five years, they have no hope of reversal -- until Ant-Man returns from the Quantum Realm and reports that it offers a possibility for time travel. (Told you he had weird physics.)

Arrival (2016)

My poor dad wasn't feeling well enough to come watch this with me. I suppose I could've waited another week for him, but I've been getting antsy to see the most talked-about Academy Award nominees and hadn't given much thought to Lion yet. In retrospect, La La Land, which he's already seen, would've been a better choice, but I keep feeling reluctant: Ryan Gosling hasn't been in many movies I like, and Damien Chazelle is best known for something that disturbs me. Had I noticed that Arrival was directed by the ever-disturbing Denis Villeneuve, the latter reason wouldn't have worked for me.

Giant alien ships land at twelve seemingly random points far apart on Earth. U.S. Army Col. Weber (Forest Whitaker) invites renowned language professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) to translate messages from the two known aliens at the U.S. landing site. Unable to work remotely, she comes to meet them face to...face?...and slowly learn their reason for visiting -- hopefully before someone in power jumps to the wrong conclusion. Her biggest help in the endeavor is Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), who's more partial to science than language, but that doesn't stop the obvious signs of a budding romance.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

The comic book adaptations have been coming fast and furious, but this is the first 2016 entry I've seen. What can I say? My dad didn't feel like joining me for Deadpool, and the reviews for Batman v. Superman and X-Men: Apocalypse have been worryingly mixed. For this reason, I'm in no good position to compare CA:CW to BvS, and maybe that's just as well.

I had heard before that the theme of the infighting concerned new legislation that would put the Avengers under UN oversight, with Captain America leading the antis and Iron Man leading the pros. (Only Thor and the Hulk are sitting this one out.) But that conflict is rather incidental to the real reason: Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. the Winter Soldier, formerly Hydra's greatest brainwashed assassin, is the #1 suspect in a subsequent UN bombing. Cap wants to give his old friend Bucky more of a chance than the conventional authorities would. There's actually a third side: Newly minted hero Black Panther, wishing to avenge his father, would rather kill Bucky than let him get arrested. As it turns out, vengeance is a bit of a running theme....

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

If someone had told me after the first or second M:I entry that there would be a fifth in 2015, I would have dismissed the prediction with a raspberry. If someone had told me in 2006 that it would star Tom Cruise, I would have rolled my eyes. Funny how these things change.

In Ghost Protocol, Ethan Hunt and company had their remote support cut off and dealt with failing gadgetry among other new problems. This time it's worse: The CIA director (Alec Baldwin), believing that the Impossible Missions Force made up the destructive force known as the Syndicate to justify its own less ruly acts, gets the IMF officially disbanded. When Ethan doesn't stop doing what he does, he becomes a wanted man, worrying the few people willing to help him track down Syndicate honcho Solomon Lane (Sean Harris, who needs little more than a stone face).